tuscl

OT: Americans Grow More Confident as Job Market Improves: Economy

Wednesday, December 24, 2014 8:59 AM
"The confidence index blew past its long-term average as a strengthening job market, hints of impending wage gains and the cheapest gasoline in five years help Americans shake off any lingering recessionary blues. The gauge’s eight-point jump over the past three months has been led by improving attitudes toward the economy and buying climate, signaling a retail sales surge will probably extend beyond the holidays." [view link]

17 comments

  • Dougster
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    10 years ago
    But Stevie-girl and everyone on TUSCL said the job market was lousy and retail sales would suck! What is going on with this non-sense article?
  • Mate27
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    10 years ago
    We're doomed! Lets focus on the periods of time when things are bad and cling on to them like an emotional security blanket, so by the time things have turned around and are looking good, we have missed the boat because we're scared little pussies. Now once our scared little pussy ass has decided to let go of our emotional blanket an find courage to step out to the real world again, another recession/economic decline will begin confirming our "doomed" psyche we held long ago, and forever holding onto our victim like mentality. A broken clock is right twice a day, but these damaged doomsayers may be right....Never! Because we live in the greatest country ever. Get used to prosperity, unless you are a victim of class warfare or racial discrimination, then there's no hope for you. Doomed!
  • san_jose_guy
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    10 years ago
    Wow! Dougster, if everyone listens to you, there most certainly will be a another boom, a boom in investor confidence. But what about after the boom is over? And what about those of us who want to earn their living by doing real work, instead of just boosting for bubbles? SJG Thom Hartmann Even during the so called "Recovery", poverty is getting worse! [view link]
  • Dougster
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    10 years ago
    Providing financial services to help businesses spur and take advantage of the recovery and employ people and generate wealth to really make society better is not real work? I guess you can think what you want. With maturity you'll see otherwise one day, however.
  • san_jose_guy
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    10 years ago
    What you are describing is speculating, helping the well off find ways to further expand their control over our productive economy. With each one of these boom and bust cycles, there will be people who make money by virtue of buying high and selling low. Most of the time, they are making this money off of poorer people. With maturity I hope that someday you will see that this is all it is. I like the S.F. protest group, Sisters of Perpetual Indugence, basically drag queens dressed as nuns on roller skates. They say that their purpose in life is to show people two truths: 1. Religion is a business 2. Business is a relgion SJG
  • Dougster
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    10 years ago
    SJG: " What you are describing is speculating" That's part but not all of it. Mostly you are just very eager to find a good windmill to charge at.
  • Dougster
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    10 years ago
    Venture capitalist takes a chance and funds a business. Speculation? Yes. Bad for society? No. Speculator acts as a counter party for a company looking to hedge out currency or energy exposure? Bad for society. No? Wall Street rightful got alot of the blame for the crash in 2008, but what I have not heard enough of is the credit they deserve for bouncing us back instead of letting us sink into depression. Of course feeling clever because you have cracked a giant conspiracy theory works best if the villain is all evil. Most mature people stop seeing the world as all black and all white after a certain age though. I guess some take longer to get to that point than others.
  • san_jose_guy
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    10 years ago
    Yes of course, the vast majority of it is bad for society. Here, about Kleiner Perkins and specific individuals I have worked with directly: [view link] The stuff they do is down right pathological. It works, despite the influence of the investors, not because of it. More than anything, it is toxic because money is unlimited, and because what the investors want is to win big. Hansell contrasts this with Mom and Pop businesses, which have a very low failure rate. If they get to the point of being able to deliver goods or service, then the failure rate is near zero. You don't hear about the KP failures, because they always absorb them into new ventures. So there is never any default on debts or pay role. They know that that would make them look bad. They plan on a 1 in 10 success rate. But that 1 in 10 will be a 100 to 1 or 1000 to one winning. It can be the next Compaq Computer. These are the business practices of people who can gamble with a million dollars at a time. It is bad for society for a number of reasons: 1. It is a waste of the talent of the knowledge based stake holders. I mean the engineers, scientists, and technicians. But it is also a waste of the accountants, lawyers, human resources, and facilities people. It is a waste of sales and marketing people. It is a waste of the talent of anyone who wants to do things which serve actual social needs. So of course this is bad for society. We need our talented people to be doing things of value, not simply being involved in gambits for market control. 2. These guys plan on a 1 in 10 success rate. But they are picking things which, though having high risk, also have a phenomenal potential for monumental success. So this means that the ventures are actually very conservative. They are trying to boom established trends. Their stuff is conformist, and not creative or innovative. Of course sweeping the talent pool into bull shit approaches to stuff is bad for society. 3. These venture capitalists are controlling what gets funded and what does not, according to their own special formula of monumental potential, but high risk. Most social needs do no fit this, they are actually well established use patterns which could be improved upon. If mom and pop were to do it, these are the things they would address. The upside potential is strong, but it is not phenomenal. But the chance of failure is not that large either. These ventures are not a waste of talent at all. But because of the pro-speculators, these things are at a huge disadvantage, they are hamstrung. Here is one of the manuals of how to approach business, without making it into a Ponzi Scheme. The most important thing is avoiding over capitalization, as that means there will be pressure to make it into more than it is, in order for the investors to get their returns. [view link] Here is another: [view link] Another excellent source of information about such matters: [view link] More about the market manipulation style of doing business: [view link] Most of those who do the actual innovation, get little more than a basic paycheck. The people who commercialize by gaining market control, are different. These are the ones the speculators back, and it is all about market control. It actually limits the pace of innovation. So of course this is bad for society. 4. The speculators control what gets funded and what does not, according to their formula, they drive other more worthy competitors of a different style out. They also serve to further the concentration of wealth at the top. Much of the money in their funds, which does very well being able to gamble in millions of dollars at a time, is old money, gilded age money. The rest of it is new money. During the era of America's greatest economic growth, greatest standard of living for working people, zero homelessness, and a much lower crime rate, the tax rate on upper incomes ran from 90% to 70%. I am talking about the 40's thru 1980, FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, and Carter. What has been happening since is that that very same money, taken out of the productive sector of our society, no longer available for the government to use to prop up the middle tier of the labor market, instead remains in private hands and has been used for speculators to gain control over our future productive capacity. Every year it continues the wealth gap continues to expand, actual innovation is strangled, as total bullshit stuff gets funded. People call this progress, but it is nothing of the sort, it is a sickness. Remember, coming out of the Great Depression, via Keynesian Economics the Gov't was going to contain these booms and busts, as they do serious harm. It is not that easy to contain a bust. But you certainly can decline to support booms and by providing people with stable jobs with good wages and benefits, you can neutralize the fatalistic thinking which supports the booms. If you can limit the booms, you can keep the busts within manageable proportions. How many of these "booms", I mean the "genuine booms", have there been since 1980? A while back there was even one they were calling, "The New Economy". Wow! [view link] But Dougster, I mean how about you? I am assuming that you put your money into speculative stocks just before you started boosting for the 2015 bubble. Of course it is not just you, it is you and your friends. You guys never have to sit down and plan together, you've never even met. But you all know how this works, so you each just repeat what the others are saying. After a bust, you start sending out trial balloons for the next boom. When you think you've go a theme that works, you put your money in, and just start pouring it on. Then, after you've bought low and it is high, as high as you think you can credibly push it, then you take your money out. When will this be? Are you trying to keep this "genuine boom" going until 1/1/2015? Then, you take your money out and start boosting for the bust. And you try to keep that going as long as you can. Of course you have to keep it going until election day 11/2016. Then after that your money goes back in, and the boosting for the next boom starts! Wow! Talk about a SYSTEM, you guys have really got it!! SJG
  • san_jose_guy
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    10 years ago
    I don't see it as black and white. But likewise, I have no desire to support a boom and bust economy either. Difficult to stop the busts, and they really do hurt people. But we can decline to support the booms, and this does mitigate the size of the busts. [view link] About how the American Dream has been replaced by fatalism. You can see it in all the state sponsored lotteries. California's was one of the first, and it is horrible. It promotes the idea that normal life and normal jobs are not worth living, and that no one should expect otherwise. It promotes the idea that there are a small handful of winners, and the rest are losers. This money that is being used by the speculators has done this, as it has gained control of our productive economy, via cycle after cycle of boom and bust. You can see the fatalism in the state sponsored lotteries, but you can also see it in how many people are involved in the stock market. Most of the time with these booms and busts, it is the little gamblers who lose. The people who really live for it are often able to buy low, and sell high. But they do this because other people are doing the opposite. Do you know that back during the 60's, TV news did not even talk about the stock market numbers. It was still thought that getting ordinary people involved in that was not much different from gambling. So they did not promote it. My how ideas have changed. But the cost of this is more and more people working in jobs which pay less than a living wage. Sometimes people have 2 or 3 jobs, but they still don't have a livable income. So of course this is bad for society. Think of what it looks like for a child to be growing up seeing how tough it is in this country, and that a job is not a way to live, jobs are for suckers. No this not a conspiracy, as the people don't have to meet together and plan. They can just tell which way the wind is blowing. You present lots of economic analysis, but not one iota of it has any predictive power. All it has is explanatory power. I mean, if the jobs numbers were not improving, then the stock market bubble would not be as big as it now is. Okay, but what will happen tomorrow? Does any of this information give you enough insight to be able to know? Of course not. It is just like listening to the weather report on TV news, and then calling your bookie to see what kind of odds he will give you. Maybe the weather report will prove to have been right, but maybe not. In any event, the booking is making his decisions on the basis of exactly the same information which you are. What does drive the booms, is boosting. But it only works to a point, then it crashes. So an investor class interest does this. It is not a conspiracy, it is simply people who by income level, but also by values and socio-cultural views, have a common interest and work to advance it. Showing this is not immaturity. Deciding to stand on the sidelines of some nonsense and trying to find comrades who want to work to do things differently is most certainly a display of maturity. [view link] SJG Gimme Shelter [view link]
  • Dougster
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    10 years ago
    It's very easy to go bust as a VC or a speculator. So the ones who survive are ones who really understand the economy, the market, what prodcuts will make it and which won't. They earn the right to control what gets funded and what doesn't by their skills. I'd rather it be them than the government deciding or mom and pop what gets funded and what doesn't. I've been generally optimistic on the economy since 2009 and have had some infamous differences with the pessimists here especially starting in late 2012. I've mostly made more noise about the boom lately because I receieved some unfair ridicule by a pile on herd mentality when I talked about it back in October. They criticize my correct beliefs unfairly they are going to hear about it for a long time to come. :-) I am not one to drop things easily when I am right. And I won't dream of thinking anything o say here influences the market or even individual members decisions one iota. It's the media's job to do that. Not mine. :-)
  • Dougster
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    10 years ago
    Also I think you might have tuned into the boom discussions a little late. Back then I used the performamce of various markets as evidence of leading indicators that we some dynamite economic numbers were about to come out. There were other indicators such as the high levels that large funds were buying at and how violent the snap back from the Ebola scare was in October. When the numbers came in red hot it wasn't any surprise to me, but I always find it amusing group psychology to see how a group can have some pretty ridiculous beliefs just to minize overall cognitive dissonance. I do agree with you that the market knew the jobs number would be good all along. You, OTOH, were one of the ones who didn't and are changing your story now. My belief that the market will continue to be strong next year is due to the fact that growth has a positive second derivative and the big technologies that will make this all happen are still in early stages. There will always be bumps along the way and bad days but that fact alone will dominate any short term fluctuations or corrections on over obviousness.
  • san_jose_guy
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    10 years ago
    Venture Capitalists have not in anyway shape or form earned any right to control the direction of our economy, consumer markets, compatibility standards, or technology. We do not have to yield to them, salute them, or go along with them in anyway. Yes, it is easy to go bust as a VC. Kleiner Perkins, one of the most visible, has a 90% failure rate. But they still do okay because of the size of their winners. But the effect that KP and those like them have on our society is negative, not positive. The direction they push things always leads to an inferior outcome. They drive innovation into a direction which will help speculators make money. But this is almost never a societal positive. Because of their actions, it is harder for others to make positive contributions. And so innovation is hamstrung. Maybe some do not see this because the control of the speculators is so large that you have to look hard for counter examples. As far as the gov't making the decisions, so much of our semiconductor, computer, and digital media technology are still Apollo Program spin offs. And likewise gov't funded universities are still our primary source of technical education. I would think that these speculators would appreciate this and stop putting their money into right wing think tanks devoted to blocking any attempts to restore progressive taxation. In Japan and Germany their governments fund massive programs to help keep their industries in the forefront, and at least supposedly this is for the good of their society. In actuality though, as their democracies are also extremely flawed, the societal good dimension is in doubt. On the other hand though, Germany has made great public policy strides in the area of green and sustainable energy: [view link] As far as mom and pop, so much innovation does happen with little people, like a teenager writing a new UNIX based operating system and then putting together a world wide network to support it, and then gaining the dominant position with web servers. Then there was the guy working for a basic paycheck from CERN, inventing the world wide web and it's first browser. Then there was a team of guys working for basic paychecks at Bell Labs and inventing the transistor. None of these people had any help from speculative investors. In fact they were able to do what they did because they stayed under the radar. There are just countless examples of people who have developed new things, which became our standards. Usually these were open standards. But then the VC's get in and totally change our relationship to it, and so it becomes more stifling of innovation and just another way to squeeze money out of the general population. And someone who does not agree with your prediction of a boom is not anymore of an pessimist than you are. Likewise, someone like me who would prefer that there not be more booms and busts, is not a pessimist either. The belief that the only way our society can move on is via continual boom and bust cycles is not just pessimistic, it is fatalististic. Such a person has given up trying to see how things could be different. So instead they just want to promote more cycles of boom and bust, with the wealth gap ever increasing and our society falling apart. Our country is moving in the same direction that most societies have gone, with a few people at the top controlling the land, the labor, and the political processes, and everyone else sinking down until they are living with greater and greater instability, and eventually ending up working for starvation wages. Our experiment with democracy always depended on working people being able to support themselves. If you take this away, democracy vanishes. I remember back to the 1988 Presidential Campaign, in the last two weeks Michael Dukakis started to actually talk like a Democrat. At a rally in Ohio he described the flurry of mergers, acquisitions, and leveraged buyouts that were the Reagan era boom and the 1986 bust. Dukakis said, "A lot of money being made by sharp operators. Well I don't care about the sharp operators. I care about the lathe operators and the milling machine operators." In this one speech, Dukakis had balls enough to tell people what was going on and what the real issue was. So to make things different so that working people can have a future again and so that our democracy can survive, we need structural changes in our economic system. We got some of this with the Progressive Movement, and we got more of it in the New Deal. And it worked, 40 years with very little economic strife or of the consequences that come with such strife! The Great Society changes were always compromised from the start. They did do much seriously needed good, but they did not go far enough. These times, the 40's through 1980 were America's greatest to date for our shared economy. But I am not a pessimist, as I know that we can do even better. We just have to make some major economic structure changes, instead of letting speculators drive it. You wrote, "My belief that the market will continue to be strong next year is due to the fact that growth has a positive second derivative and the big technologies that will make this all happen are still in early stages." This sounds like just a belief with a fanciful story. Again, there is zero predictive power in it. You say that you've been looking to the next boom since 2009. Well that there will be another boom is a no brainer. Of course after a bust, the same people who brought us the last boom and bust will be doing their best to bring on the next cycle, as that is how they get more wealth transferred to their hands. So there is no doubt that there is another boom in the works. Is it still to come? Is it starting right now before us? Or, especially looking at the current stock market bubble, I have to ask, is it possible that it has already come and so now it is near it's bursting point? How can anyone tell? I mean if someone could predict financial futures, then those futures would already be the present. It is always an expectations game. If you could actually know, then it would already be that way today. So let me ask you this, as there could be some who actually listen to you and place some of their money at risk. What indicators are you looking for to decide when to pull your money out, and have you seen any of these signs yet? SJG Less oil being used, which is good. But trouble amongst oil producers, and of course this threatens economic stability and all financial markets. [view link] Gimme Shelter w/ Lisa Fischer [view link] Simple Man, Shine Down [view link]
  • Dougster
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    10 years ago
    Ok, SJG. I you've argued well that a guy who thinks he can transform society like you think you can is arguably, pretty dang optimistic. I think you've slightly distorted some things I've said, however. I said I was generally optimistic on the economy since 2009, but I didn't really get the notion that we would in for an economic boom/secular bull market until after we were out of the Euro crisis. Also, of course, I don't think I know the future exactly. Any trade/investment/business venture involves some uncertainty and risk. Signs could indeed come along that the market are about to implode. I haven't seen them yet. Some indications would be: one sided optimism in the media and amongst financial analysts. Right now their forecast seem to about 10% gains next year, which is hardly euphoric. It could certainly change though. Other indications would be stocks going parabolic. Or large funds selling their positions, or going short. There are ways to know what they are doing, however, and, lately they just been buying more at high levels. Insider selling is another good sign, as is lack of insider buying. I think the mostly likely thing that could hurt the stock market would be deflation due to prolonged low energy prices. I also believe that low interest rates are holding back the economy, so fairly to raise them will also harm the markets. Low treasury yields are the best concrete evidence I see for a such a possibility playing out. I've said elsewhere that a correction could start any day. Now that the market which is related to but not the same as the economy. As far as the economic goes, since it is predicated more on where we are in technology and product cycles, it's harder to see that derailing. I can't really think of a scenario that would prevent that - at best it might slow down. Which is why I think the market is certain to bounce back from any dips next year. Now as far as Linux go - now doubt some good technologies have come out of the people's basement and the free software world. I use both free and commercial software routinely Linux/Solaris/Windows and the commercial stuff is almost always better. Alot of the free stuff is appallingly bad. You mention Linux being the dominate server OS. Okay, true, and it sees almost no use by consumers and mom and pop.
  • san_jose_guy
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    9 years ago
    Now that we are in 2015, I do now have to admit that Dougster was indeed correct. We do have a 2015 boom! I didn't think it would last this long, but it has. So now though, when will this 2015 boom end? Usually they rise gradually, the stock market indices and all other indices climbing and climbing as more and more money goes in. Then it starts getting erratic, and then there is a big drop. So of course those who know when to get out are the ones who do the best. Predicting that there will be another boom is a no brainer. As long as the surplus money is still in circulation, it will flow in to feed the next bubble. The real thing is knowing when to get out. So Dougster, please tell us, when should we get out? How can we see the bust coming before it is already reflected in the markets? And where is Steve229? I am concerned and we need him back. SJG Jeff Beck [view link]
  • Dougster
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    9 years ago
    Well the bet for December was more modest, but still another in a long line of good numbers I think the economic boom will last 20-30 years. Of course the market is not going to go up every day and there will be corrections along the way. The main way I'll tell in advance is when the consensus on TUSCL admits that there is a boom. :-) Other ways are to look what large funds are doing and where we are in the product cycles. There's some signs starting to form that there could be a significant correction this year, by which I mean 10-20% from the top. I've discussed this a bit in PMs an in some posts. But the theme would be deflation and it would be credible if oil stays low and brings down the cost everything with it. It might be that the bond market has anticipated this all along and that's why yields are so insanely low (although I have a slightly different conjecture for why). Good to see you back, SJG! I wish you luck and how you enjoy fight The Man again this year. I enjoy reading your takes on economic and market matters.
  • san_jose_guy
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    9 years ago
    Well of course we have another bubble, look how much higher the Dow is from when Obama took office. [view link] How much longer will it last? 20 to 30 months is too much. I say 20 to 30 weeks, as the powers that be will want to influence the 2016 election. As for the overall effects, from say 1980 to the present? You see this every time you go into the VIP Room with a young hottie who has come to accept that her best financial option is to lye down on the floor and spread her legs for you. The booms make it this way, and the busts do too. Without that progressive income tax money, the mid level jobs, the good jobs, are gone. New bubbles will not improve this, they just make it worse. I enjoy reading your posts too Dougster, SJG
  • Dougster
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    9 years ago
    Today was a good example of what would be a good indication of pending market danger: The indices got close to being up 2% and then gave up all their gains. The volatility index never really believed the rally to begin with. Larger players were not very involved. Now it could just be caution or a fake out ahead of earnings, so I'll hold saying this is the start of the correction for now.
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